TONI’S SOUR NOTE

TONI Braxton was duped out of more than $10 million by a manager who trashed the Grammy-winning diva’s career by tricking her into recording exclusively with him, a federal lawsuit alleges. Braxton claims Barry Hankerson used “fraud, deception and double-dealing” to get her to leave a lucrative deal with Arista Records and sign exclusively with his Blackground Records in 2003. The suit says Hankerson destroyed Braxton’s relationship with Arista through “underhanded double-talk” – secretly telling each party that the other wanted to part ways – despite having sold at least 20 million albums together. Hankerson could not be reached for comment.